Are we focusing too much on the system of evangelism and missing the simple message that Jesus brings?

Kevin Swanson argues that there's too much human orientation and process tweaking in our approach to evangelism. He raises concerns about a lack of intentionality and intensiveness, leading to a shallow commitment to Jesus. Instead of attracting followers of Jesus, he worries that we are attracting followers of the program. He believes we've strayed from the core message of discipleship, which is to receive the words, repent of our sins, and turn in faith to Jesus Christ. 

Swanson also highlights the problematic separation of evangelism and discipleship, and the disconnection between faith and life. He laments that the result is a shallow church that merely attracts a growing apostate generation, yielding more "wood, hay, and stubble" than "gold, silver, and precious stones." He urges a return to a continual process of encouraging an ongoing trust and life of repentance, where faith fully reflects in our manner of life.

2 Timothy 2:15 (NKJV): "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

Well, I think the big mistake is that they are really imposing a system and tweaking the system constantly, assuming that the method is the most important thing, rather than to get back to the simple message that Jesus brings and to wait upon the Holy Spirit of God to do the work and those that are to follow. So there's, I think, too much man orientation, too much tweaking of the process. Also a lack of intentionality, a lack of intensiveness. There tends to be this desire to get a rather shallow commitment to Jesus and then present perhaps the wrong message in order to attract more followers of the program versus followers of Jesus. So I think they missed the major message of what it is to be a disciple, and that is to receive the words, repent of our sins, and turn in faith to Jesus Christ.

Also, there's a separation of what I would call evangelism and discipleship, in which there's maybe an initial message of faith, repentance, but then there is a continual process in which we're discipling people in the ways of Christ and encouraging an ongoing trust and life of repentance. Also there's another aspect to this and this is a separation of knowledge in life or faith in life and that's a problem as well. So the idea of separating evangelism and discipleship is the same problem of separating faith and life. The idea that you can believe or you can know something about Jesus, but it doesn't really reflect itself in our manner of life. So that's been a real problem and it's created a shallow church, a watered down church.

We tend to want to gravitate towards attracting more into the church, but we're attracting a growing apostate generation and the end result is way, way more of the wood hay and stubble than it would be the gold, silver, and precious stones at the end of the day.